Spirit of the English country

Caring Wood is an extensive country home for three generations of the same family, incorporating formal, communal and private spaces. Set in 84 picturesque acres in Kent UK, its brief was to embody the spirit of the English country house and estate in a design that would embrace its context and landscape; and to provide a sustainable home for life, both in the sense of carbon neutrality and in terms of a flexible design that can accommodate an entire family and evolve with them, potential being extended for future generations.

Having worked together previously, James Macdonald Wright (of Macdonald Wright Architects) decided to collaborate with Niall Maxwell (of Rural Office for Architecture) to realise the design of Caring Wood.

The client wanted the form of the house to reflect the notion of the family’s interdependence and independence through a ‘four in one’ and ‘four and one’ geometrical conceit. In response, the architects developed four equal, pronounced forms in pinwheel formation, rotating around an inner courtyard. Working with the Frank Lloyd Wright principle that “No house should ever be on a hill or on anything. It should be of the hill. Belonging to it…”, the architects ‘pushed’ the house over the site’s hill and rotated it to give an ever changing series of views and vantage points.